CALCULATION GUIDE

How to Calculate Your TDEE Step-by-Step

Follow this manual guide to calculate your baseline energy expenditure, or use our automated adaptive engine to calculate your true burn from real daily logs.

Step 1: Calculate Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

The clinical gold standard for population estimates is the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation:

For Men:
BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age in years) + 5
For Women:
BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age in years) - 161

Step 2: Apply Your Physical Activity Multiplier (PAL)

Multiply your BMR from Step 1 by your physical activity level. To eliminate guesswork, use your empirical average daily step count:

Sedentary: BMR × 1.2

< 5,000 steps/day. Desk job, little to no structured workouts.

Lightly Active: BMR × 1.375

5,000–7,500 steps/day. Light exercise 1–3 days/week.

Moderately Active: BMR × 1.55

7,500–10,000 steps/day. Moderate exercise 3–5 days/week.

Very Active: BMR × 1.725

10,000–13,000 steps/day. Hard exercise 6–7 days/week.

Step 3: An Example Calculation

Profile: 30-year-old male, 80 kg (176 lbs), 180 cm tall, moderately active (8,000 steps/day).

  • BMR = (10 × 80) + (6.25 × 180) - (5 × 30) + 5 = 800 + 1,125 - 150 + 5 = 1,780 kcal
  • TDEE = 1,780 × 1.55 = 2,759 kcal/day

Eating 2,759 calories a day will maintain this individual's bodyweight. To lose 1 lb of fat per week, he would eat ~2,259 kcal/day (a 500 kcal deficit).

Why Track Adaptively Instead of Manually?

Formula calculations give you an estimate for Day 1. But as you lose or gain weight, your true expenditure changes. AdapTDEE uses your actual weight logs to recalculate your real TDEE dynamically every single week.